/*
 * $Header:
 * /home/jerenkrantz/tmp/commons/commons-convert/cvs/home/cvs/jakarta-commons
 * //httpclient
 * /src/java/org/apache/commons/httpclient/methods/multipart/PartSource.java,v
 * 1.6 2004/04/18 23:51:37 jsdever Exp $ $Revision: 480424 $ $Date: 2006-11-29
 * 06:56:49 +0100 (Wed, 29 Nov 2006) $
 *
 * ====================================================================
 *
 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
 * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with this
 * work for additional information regarding copyright ownership. The ASF
 * licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
 * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
 * WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
 * License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under
 * the License.
 * ====================================================================
 *
 * This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many individuals on
 * behalf of the Apache Software Foundation. For more information on the Apache
 * Software Foundation, please see <http://www.apache.org/>.
 */

package com.microsoft.tfs.core.httpclient.methods.multipart;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;

/**
 * An interface for providing access to data when posting MultiPart messages.
 *
 * @see FilePart
 *
 * @author <a href="mailto:becke@u.washington.edu">Michael Becke</a>
 *
 * @since 2.0
 */
public interface PartSource {

    /**
     * Gets the number of bytes contained in this source.
     *
     * @return a value >= 0
     */
    long getLength();

    /**
     * Gets the name of the file this source represents.
     *
     * @return the fileName used for posting a MultiPart file part
     */
    String getFileName();

    /**
     * Gets a new InputStream for reading this source. This method can be called
     * more than once and should therefore return a new stream every time.
     *
     * @return a new InputStream
     *
     * @throws IOException
     *         if an error occurs when creating the InputStream
     */
    InputStream createInputStream() throws IOException;

}
